SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle

SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle

SportsFilter: The Thursday Huddle

Would really like the next MLB collective bargaining agreement to get rid of the option to postpone the clock on a player's career by keeping him down for a month. Seems like every year the Spring Training buzz is about a Next Big Thing who we won't get to see. Maybe it gives people something to talk about.

Speaking of which, my daily baseball trivia calendar wants "four players who would be eligible for a Solar-System Team". I can ignore the weird hyphenation but disappointed them didn't buy my idea for Melky Way Cabrera.

Can popularity ruin a sport?

Obama Proposal Could End Taxpayer-Subsidized Pro Sports Stadiums

if all the good burger joints close I'll spend the same amount of money at McDonald's.

No, what price elasticity says is if all the good burger joins close you'll seek out a decent steak place. Or if you're really inelastic and only want a burger, maybe you buy a new grill and cooking classes.

There are only four sporting events reasonably close by I'll shell out money to attend

Sure, but if those aren't available and you're stuck for something to do for the weekend, maybe you go to the movies or a concert or buy a DVD or whatever. Treating this cash as "Money a Person Spends on Sports" is putting too tight a fence around it. It's entertainment dollars or disposable income or whatever you like to call it.

Obama Proposal Could End Taxpayer-Subsidized Pro Sports Stadiums

If the Jaguars ever leave Jacksonville, there will be zero places for the pro sports fan to spend any dollars in this town.

If you actually look at the data on what people do with their money, this is categorically untrue for all but a small percentage of the population.

There's a question comes down to: does attending an NFL game have 0 price elasticity and I'd say it does not: college & high school football would replace it for all but the most hard-core fan and other entertainment options (movies, clubs, etc) would replace it for others. It's unlikely even the most hard-core NFL-only football fan is going to sit home and swim in their saved dollars Scrooge McDuck-style. Maybe they'll play Madden instead. Or splurge on a new TV and DirectTV.

SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle

Can popularity ruin a sport?

"He spent two years asking folk in and around Yellowstone why they are so cross. Beneath debates about science and economics he found arguments about morality and the proper relations between humans and nature though those involved often do not, or will not acknowledge this. In short, all sides purport to be weighing what is true and false, while really arguing about right and wrong."

"Lots of other countries debate such issues as the death penalty, abortion, gun control or global warming in parliament, allowing partisans to admit when they are advancing emotional or religious arguments. From its earliest days American law courts and congressional hearings have rung to the noise of impassioned partisans, hurling facts (and, all too often, confected para-facts) at one another in a bid to prove the other side wrong."

Can popularity ruin a sport?

Rafa is one of those Germans who apologise that their English isn't so good.

As holden suggests, Rafa is full of crap. He reminds me of that Boston joke, "What's the difference between Pedro and Clemens? Pedro's English is better." Every time Rafa makes a funny play on words in English I feel a little stupider. Football Weekly does a nice job of collecting really smart people who happen to write about football. Then again, much like baseball, football seems to draw those people by nature.

needing something like sports/politics/religion/music to be right about to validate their reality.

Wish I could find it (and I may have already linked it here) but there was a fantastic article in The Economist earlier this year from one of their name columnists about some Western state where liberals and conservatives were fighting about issues without any real evidence on either side.

Can popularity ruin a sport?

how to keep the humanity in things as they scale in size

Yeah, there's a certain segment of folks at any event who act as though the event exists exclusively for them and they're happy to elbow you out of the way and block your view and forget about common courtesy because it's their world.

SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle

Obama Proposal Could End Taxpayer-Subsidized Pro Sports Stadiums

But I don't see how you can claim there's no increased economic activity on the 10 days a year when the Rams are hosting a game.

He's claiming it moves the activity to those days instead of creating new spending. It depends on whether you buy the assertion that "most people spend every cent of their pay cheque anyways". You can see US Personal Savings Rate data here. If we grant that a bunch of that savings happens among the extremely wealthy then dfleming's assertion becomes really interesting: what if instead of generating new spending they're just taking it away from other entertainment options? Do sports complexes create a black hole in the outlying areas? It would be interesting to see how Patriots Place has fared compared to retailers right around Foxboro.

Can popularity ruin a sport?

Regardless of your interest in football/ soccer, I found this piece really interesting because I've drifted away from sport a fair bit in the last decade or so and I can't tell how much is natural from aging and how much is the relentless focus, the constant yammering of talking heads who don't know anything and what roto sports have done to how we appreciate games.

And then there's the tribalism. I doubt it affects US sports much, but soccer pages on ESPN are full of Facebook comments much like he describes:

Due to its lower profile internationally and Germans' relatively small appetite for public debate, we have, mercifully, not yet reached the point where recently-converted VfL Wolfsburg supporters in sub-saharan Africa scour the internet for perceived slights of their club and vow to hound the offending pro-Whatever FC journalists out of their jobs. (Regular "comments section" frequenters will recognise the phenomenon: newcomers to the faith, especially those who live too far away to physically congregate with their gods and prophets, seem to feel the need to compensate for those defects by adopting a fundamentalist, 100% humour-free stance in defence of their side, while those born into the religion through parental lineage or proximity can often afford a more relaxed, ambivalent and honest relationship with the powers that be, as well as more tolerance towards non-believers).

It's as though sports exist for some people just as an outlet to yell at others.

SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle

"Why not go for 70?"

Last night I stopped on Game 5 of the 1990 playoffs between the Celtics and Knicks and said to my wife, "I remember sitting on the couch that Sunday 15 years ago . . . " before realizing I'd forgotten to carry a one somewhere. I need a cane.

The NFL free-agency period begins with a slew of major moves

Now Browner has gone to New Orleans

Mike Reiss and a couple other people are saying the reason they let Browner shop around is because he wasn't useful to them if Revis left as they felt they couldn't play the press coverage he and Revis did without Revis. So I guess they felt tremors under Revis Island early on.

The NFL free-agency period begins with a slew of major moves

I assumed letting Browner shop around was because they were resigning Revis and either didn't want to pay for Browner or wanted him to be happy with a lower figure would let the market prove it. Now I'm more confused, mainly because $14 million per year for Revis doesn't seem crazy to me. That said, they may feel like it's a lot to shell out for a guy who will be 33 at the end of the deal and won't be worth the cap constraint after the first year or two. That's what I'm trying to tell myself anyway.

The other piece I think they're going to miss is Vereen

Vereen was an excellent weapon for them, but I don't think he's particularly hard to replace and paying $4 million per year for a third-down back seems like a wild overpay in the current market. A bunch of names have been thrown out as replacements from Roy Helu to Percy Harvin and every H back* between. If Helu shows up with four working limbs at $1-2 million per year that seems like a good replacement. I'm not sold on Harvin at all. Ignoring his injury history and diva tendencies, 3rd down back involves a lot of blitz pickup and who knows how good he is at that?

Or maybe the Pats didn't play James White at all last year to reserve the secret super-powered back they're going to unleash in 2015. A boy can dream.

The NFL free-agency period begins with a slew of major moves

Revis Island rejoins the J-E-T-S Jets Jets Jets

Trying to find my "In Bill We Trust" tank top but in the short-term this hurts. I felt the Pats were the prohibitive favorites to represent the AFC in the Superbowl next year with Revis but without him and with the division getting harder it feels less likely. That said, the Pats' cap is fairly tight and they have a number of young players they want to extend next year so long-term this is probably the right move. But right now it feels like ensuring more years of 10+ wins at the cost of another possible championship now.

SportsFilter: The Thursday Huddle

Yeah - when they didn't franchise him, it meant the Pats were going to have to do a big-dollar, longer-term deal with a guy in the secondary which they pretty rarely do

Oh, I didn't see it that way at all. Given safety is all of a sudden a premium position and there's not much in the draft or free agency, I thought the Pats used the franchise tag on Gostkowski because the hit for a kicker is much lower and because they do intend to resign McCoutry to a long-term deal that works for both sides. Could be he walks but I don't think so. It's not as though players see the franchise tag as a sign of respect; some take it as an insult.

SportsFilter: The Friday Huddle

Even that, the most unique feature McCoy Stadium offers, was portrayed this week by one of the new principal owners as a drawback rather than a virtue . . . The same goes for the plentiful and free parking that always has been available at McCoy Stadium.

SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle

If it's not passed the sniff test of the newsroom, it's not yet a story.

The "People Yelling at Each Other" side of ESPN won a long time ago. Anything they feel like talking about is a story. And if it's too risky, then they let ESPN Radio create a groundswell and report on the controversy.

"Alonzo Gee has been on five teams since early July. He became a punch line among NBA trade cognoscenti as his nonguaranteed $3 million contract for 2014-15 morphed into a trade chip teams used to clear cap space and facilitate complex transactions."

SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle

Igor Larionov reflects on playing for Red Army, and what is wrong with North American hockey

One theme keeps coming back to me: "Widen the rinks to the international standard".

This. I'm all for tradition, but Eddie Shore wasn't playing in a league where the average guy was 6'2", 200 pounds and could skate this fast. The objections in the pull quote sound a lot like non-English football players talking about the English approach to the sport.

SportsFilter: The Monday Huddle

Sort of the best part, right? They're complaining about poor attendance in spite of the Pawsox success but not considering the economy. Love to know where they think the State of RI is going to come up with money to build a new stadium for them.

Chargers, Raiders Pursue Shared Stadium in Los Angeles

Not to quibble, but I think they moored the Chesapeake around when Harborplace opened, and the Torsk and the Constellation were there much longer.

Yeah, but what about the giant cigarette boat playing just the "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?!" part of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" on an endless loop while idling near the docks looking for tourists? Without Camden Yards you don't have that.

Chargers, Raiders Pursue Shared Stadium in Los Angeles

It will also revitalize an area if the stadium is occupied for decades (like Camden)

That is a fantastic point. In 1992 teams didn't really move. We were only 8 years removed from the Colts packing up in the middle of the night and causing a scandal when they left Baltimore. Nowadays all but the most well-established teams seem to be carpetbaggers constantly eyeing a better deal in Shelbyville or points South. How excited are fans in Oklahoma City to have a good team come to them from Seattle and now there are already grumblings about market size?

Sports teams, the Olympics, etc can revitalize an area, but I don't think it's currently likely. I feel like they've used the fact teams have revitalized downtowns to leverage giant pots of cash out of municipalities and the cost-benefit ratio doesn't make sense anymore.

Chargers, Raiders Pursue Shared Stadium in Los Angeles

the only real opportunity for reform is a collective spinal-installation procedure for elected officials

I don't know if that's the answer: because they're only elected for a short time and because people tend to vote against their long-term interests for this kind of crap, isn't it more of an education issue? I do hold out some hope when I see outlets like deadspin constantly calling out stadium deals but it's unlikely to seep into mainstream nightly news when each of the channels is beholden to the NFL.

Hey, that's a pretty impressive piece of evil dealing by the NFL, getting their hands in the pockets of all 4 major networks. Plus Rupert Murdoch owns a bunch of papers and radio stations. It's almost like we had those laws against this kind of crap for a reason.

SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle

SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle

Can't find a link online yet, but DeflateGate (and ESPN's reporting) gets more confusing: "To repeat @AdamSchefter report, an AFC Championship Game official sold one of the footballs that was intended for charity and has been fired". Reading another Pats beat writer who is live-tweeting Outside the Lines it sounds like ESPN can't get their story straight: OTL is interviewing a former ref who says their current story is wrong.